The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes

Lyndsay Faye writes some of the best Holmes pastiches I’ve read. This is a collection of short stories, a couple from the journals of Holmes and Watson, in some of which the “mystery” is just backdrop for our beloved duo ruminating on their daily lives and in so doing shedding light on their personalities and relationship.

Lyndsay Faye is no stranger to the world of Sherlock Holmes. Having penned the popular Dust and Shadows in which the great consulting detective takes on the greatest criminal of his day, the notorious Jack the Ripper, Faye is now reintroducing Holmes to the world in the format that it is most familiar with, as an anthology of short stories.

In The Whole Art of Detection Faye presents her readers with fifteen newly uncovered cases in four sections. The first section, Before Baker Street, begins with The Case of Colonel Warburton's Madness, in which Watson describes events that occurred in San Francisco before he and Holmes met and Holmes offers his assessment of what actually happened. Other stories are told in a variety of formats show more including excerpts from Holmes’s notes on cases. This format is particularly interesting as it doesn’t have Watson’s innate kindness to soften the disdain that Holmes often feels for those who lack his mental prowess.

The section The Early Years is also interesting in that it gives readers an insight into Watson’s mental state after losing his best friend to Reichenbach Falls and his wife to disease only to learn that Holmes had been alive for three years and hadn’t bothered to let his trusted friend know. The remaining sections, The Return and The Later Years contain more traditional stories. In some, though, Faye takes pains to use the story’s plot to shed light on the quirkier aspects of Holmes’s personality. One of the most fascinating tales in Faye’s collection is The Adventure of the Memento Mori. In it, Holmes and Watson encounter a twisted doctor who shocks the detectives with the wanton brutality of his mental health treatments. The treatments that so offended them; ice baths, electricity, starvation, isolation, and mercury tablets, were commonly accepted treatments for mental illness until well into the twentieth century. Holmes’s reaction, though, was so extreme that readers might wonder if he had deep-seated issues of his on with regards to psychiatric treatment:

“The depths to which human depravity can sink will never cease to confound me. What are we to make of the species in light of this room? Where is progress? Where is logic? Where is reason itself when a savage smashing his comrade’s skull with a rock would be kinder treatment of the race? I ask you, what is the limit of our perversion? Hell is empty,” Holmes concluded under his breath. “And all the Devils are here.”

Only once in the entire collection was I disappointed by what I read and that is not in Faye’s portrayal of Holmes or Watson but in a matter of historical accuracy. in the first story "The Case of Colonel Warburton's Madness", Faye referred to “pitched fighting between the Texians - that is, the Anglo settlers - and the Tejanos”. As I understand it a Tejano, then as now, is a Hispanic resident of Texas. As Faye mentioned Sam Houston and the Battle of San Jacinto she had to be referring to was the Texas Revolution that was fought between the residents of Texas and a Mexican army led by Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna. At that time, there was no “pitched fighting between the Texians and the Tejanos”. The Texians and Tejanos were largely united in their efforts to resist the authority of a distant Mexican government. While some Tejanos sided with Mexico, most joined with the Texians and fought for their independence. Captain Juan Seguin and a company of Tejanos fought alongside Austin, Eight Tejanos fought and died defending the Alamo and three others were signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. In short, suggesting that the white and Hispanic settlers of Texas were at war with each other at this time does a disservice to both.

Simon Vance is an accomplished narrator and his stately British accent immediately reminds the reader of the older, stodgier portrayals of Dr. Watson. I may personally prefer the younger portrayals of Watson this is familiar, and therefore comforting territory.

Bottom Line: There have been many pastiches written about A. Conan Doyle’s marvelous detective duo but few really dig deep and make an effort to get to the heart of who Sherlock Holmes was and why he behaved the way he did. Lyndsay Faye a sincere effort to do so and has written many stories that would be a credit to John Watson’s portfolio. 4 ½ stars.

*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire. show less

I have never especially been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, but I like Lyndsay Faye’s writing enough to want to read whatever she produces.

The author has apparently been writing these tales for a while about the characters of Sherlock Holmes and his collaborator and biographer John Watson, and they are collected in this volume along with two new stories. They illustrate a point Holmes makes to Watson when discussing a case:

“There are precious few crimes in this world, merely a hundred million variations upon a dozen or so themes.”

Most of the stories are told from the point of view of Dr. Watson, although a few appear as excerpts from Sherlock Holmes’ diary.

Throughout the book we get a growing sense of the skill of Sherlock Holmes and show more his amazing powers of observation and deduction. We also get increasing evidence of the the devotion each man has for the other. In fact, I thought the continuing unfolding of their relationship makes a better story than the recounting of crimes and how they got solved. I also enjoyed the difference between the ways in which Watson and Holmes thought about women. Watson tends to wax rhapsodic about them, while Holmes avers:

“I would as soon permanently tether myself to a wardrobe as a female…”

Faye is very adept at conjuring up the atmosphere and syntax of the times, and her turns of phrase are often breathtakingly adept, such as with this musing by Dr. Watson:

“The sea of melancholy in which I was floating had soaked me to the bone.”

Evaluation: This volume is bound to please fans of Sherlock Holmes. Lyndsay Faye is an excellent writer. show less

The Whole Art of Detection - Faye
Audio performance by Simon Vance
4.5 stars

I really can’t get enough of Sherlock Holmes. How nice of Lyndsay Faye to give me more Holmes and Watson stories to read. And how nice of Simon Vance to read them to me. These stories are very much true to the original Conan Doyle stories. This collection of stories also follows the pattern of Faye’s book length Dust and Shadows. Watson is more intelligent and a more active participant. Holmes is more human and humane.

There are enough differences from the original stories to give this collection a fresh stamp, but they still fall within the mold. Faye provides details and gives depth to the friendship between the partners, especially in two stories that deal show more with Holmes’ dramatic return from the dead. Several of the stories take on dear Sherlock’s alleged misogyny. There are at least 6 stories with women as either victim or villain. In three of the stories, Watson and Holmes aid and abet a female criminal to outwit abusive husbands and/or the unfair legal restrictions placed on Victorian women. Holmes seems to be taking a stand for women’s rights, at least in the areas personal finance and legal divorce. I always knew he was a good guy.

I enjoyed every story in this collection. None of the mysteries were terribly difficult to figure out. But I didn’t read them for the puzzles. It was just fun to visit with two of my favorite literary characters. show less

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book, or my review itself.

Faye has crafted a collection of short stories centered around Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. These stories cover the early years of Holmes' career, through his supposed death and return, all the way through to years after he has resumed his life in London.

I loved everything! The mysteries are fantastic and varied, and read just like the original canon stories do. Faye truly has a gift for capturing Doyle's spirit and voice within her takes on the tales.

I especially loved the more personal glimpses we get into Holmes' and Watson's hearts and heads. Holmes' return from the dead, and its show more emotional effects, is really examined here, in a beautiful way that is true to the original characters.

I absolutely loved this collection. I want to run out and own it right now so I can put it on my Sherlock Holmes' shelves. There was nothing I didn't like.

I highly recommend this book for any and all Holmes' fans. show less

It is difficult for me to read any Holmes pastiche. Even the better ones fall upon my ear like the high school band assaying Souza. One recognizes the broad outlines, the various boxes checked off (Watsonian weather ruminations, obligatory deductive flourishes, etc), but somehow it just does not get there. I read this because friends urged it on me who had enjoyed Ms Faye's prior novel, which I have yet to read. One often gets the tantalizing impression here that if one could take bits and pieces of each of these short stories and excise the inevitable and probably unavoidable syntactic anachronisms one might reach the Promised Land of a paragraph or two which could not be distinguished from the "tincture Conan Doyle." This is not the show more fault of Ms Faye, whose dry wit, and love of these characters can be seen in every story in this book, but of the reader expecting more than could be given. She avoids many of the pitfalls into which have fallen so many previous pasticheurs (populating them with every notable figure of the Victorian and Edwardian eras foremost among them), but she was not born in the 1850's. Rex Stout was once asked his opinion of authors who it seems are now called, in a loathsome locution, "continuators." He replied, "I don't know whether to call them vampires or cannibals. Let them roll their own." I understand that Ms Faye is now rolling her own, and am pleased to hear it. It seems to me a less hazardous enterprise for a writer of her obvious felicity of expression, and talent, than the one evidenced by this book. show less

**I voluntarily read an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from Grove Atlantic via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.**


I have been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was a little girl. I can remember the stormy afternoon I discovered the magic of Arthur Conan Doyle. It was Sunday and every Sunday we visited my uncle. He was a bachelor with no children, so most Sundays I spent the whole day playing outside because there was nothing at his house for kids to do. But this Sunday was horrible -- rain came down in sheets outside. No playing outdoors. So, I ventured upstairs to his library. For that entire afternoon, I lay across the bed in the guest room reading Sherlock Holmes stories. Instant love.

In my show more circle of family and friends, I'm the one who usually dislikes Hollywood remakes of classic movies, new covers of songs, any Disney movie with a 2 in the title, and tinkering with classic literature. I like my classics left alone, with very few exceptions. But, I am learning to expand my horizons and give revisits, retellings and remakes more of a chance instead of just shutting down before even attempting to engage. The above 3 Rs are not intrinsically evil. I need to relax and let my classic horizons expand sometimes. In the past few years, I've discovered many retellings and new stories starring classic characters that I like. I'm finding that loving books means learning that new authors tinkering with beloved classic characters sometimes has a wonderous, joyful outcome! But I do have to admit that while I now give revists to classic characters a better chance, I am still very picky. I can't help it. In this case, I was quite pleased and enjoyed my return visit to Baker Street.

The Whole Art of Detection is an homage to Sherlock Holmes written by a long-time big fan of Sherlock who also discovered the character as a young girl just like I did. I'm so glad that Lyndsay Faye wrote these stories!! I absolutely LOVED this book! I felt the same way about this book that I did when I first discovered Sherlock while draped over an old 4-poster bed in my uncle's drafty, old house on a rainy afternoon all those years ago.

The book is divided into several sections: Before Baker Street, The Early Years, The Return and The Later Years. Faye's stories encompass the entirety of Holmes' career from the time he was just learning to apply his detecting skills as a young man to the years following his faked death. Faye grabs the essence of the characters, the language, wit and humor of the original and runs with it!

For me, the most enjoyable thing was Faye's ability to capture the nature of the relationship of Sherlock and Dr. Watson. Those feelings of annoyance, frustration, yet strong love and friendship are essential to both characters.

The stories are all well-written, mostly true to the style of the originals and entertaining to read. It was so nice to read more exploits by one of my all-time favorite characters.

Any fan of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle will enjoy this book. I read an Advanced Readers Copy of this book for review, but have a finished copy on my pre-order list. It will go on my keeper bookshelf with my 2-volume set of the complete Sherlock Holmes. This book will release March 7th, 2017. Mystery and Holmes fans should definitely get a copy and enjoy the return to Baker Street!

Lyndsay Faye is the author of several other Holmes novels and the Timothy Wilde series. I plan to read them all! Definitely a fan! To discover more information about the author and her books, check out her website: www.lyndsayfaye.com show less